Tolko Industries’ engineered wood products mill near Slave Lake will be shut down for a bit over a month, starting on Dec. 15. Mill manager Perry Fox confirmed the down time last week, which he says will run to Jan. 18.
Fox says the Christmas period is usually a slow one in the business anyway, and that much more so at the moment, with market conditions being as poor as they’ve ever been. Stopping production for a few weeks in winter is a strategy many mills have used in the past couple of years, when demand, and prices, for their products are low.
Fox says the shutdown will actually only amount to two weeks of production, since the mill has been operating only every other week for some time. The employees, he says, won’t actually be laid off – it’ll be more along the lines of using vacation time. Essential maintenance will be carried on during the period, he says.
Otherwise, Tolko is continuing the process of certification of various products the mill is capable of producing. The ‘commissioning’ process is still underway too, Fox says; this involves efforts to get the mill working as close to 100 per cent of design capacity as possible. He says about 85 per cent has been achieved so far. If and when the market does turn around and demand picks up, Fox says he’s confident the mill will be in an excellent position to take advantage of it.
“If the market ever does come together, this mill will be the envy of the industry,” he says. “It’s got a ton of capacity and flexibility. Folks here are doing a really good job.”
Tolko announced the indefinite closure of its 14-year-old High Prairie oriented strandboard mill earlier this year, due to unfavourable market conditions.

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